Casio QV-R61 Digital Camera
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- Digital Zoom: 4x
- Camera Type: Standard Point and Shoot
- Weight: 0.37 lb.
- LCD Screen Size: 2 in.
- Resolution: 6.4 Megapixel
- Optical Zoom: 3x
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Solid and reliable camera
Pros
Superfast start-up, shutter lag, image quality, large screen, easy to use, solid and reliable handling
Cons
No movie sound, no uncompressed file, no thumbnail indexing, only 10cm Macro mode, limited features
Recommended it?
Yes
The Bottom Line:
I'd recommend the qv-r61 at the price I paid. Shop around to get the best deal and you won't be disappointed.
Appearance
The qv-r61 is small and compact in an attractive silver/aluminium style finish. It feels solid and comfortable to handle and doesn't suffer from those awkward-looking "bulges" you sometimes get with similarly priced cameras. It has a simple control layout and a decent sized 2" TFT colour LCD screen.
Features and Functions
There are 2 simple modes of operation - either Play or Record – which are accessed via 2 well placed buttons. Play mode is where you need to be in order to view your photos/movies and couldn't be simpler to use. Just use the zoom control in conjunction with the 4-way cursor pad to display your shots on the nicely sized screen. If you zoom out far enough, the display will show thumbnails in a 3 x 3 layout. Scrolling through these can be a tad confusing – you can keep stepping forward with the cursor pad and the qv-r61 will cycle continuously through your stored photos. As there is no indexing on the thumbnails themselves, it can be quite difficult to locate a particular picture and you really need to study the thumbnails to find which one you're after. It's not a major problem, but can be mildly irritating and is definitely not the most user-friendly design.
Record mode is for taking photos/movies and this has 3 separate states of operation: Snapshot, Bestshot and Movie. Snapshot is the default setting for quick and easy photography, while movie is obviously for recording avi files (no sound, unfortunately). Start-up time for this camera is impressively fast. When powered off, hitting the Record mode button initiates the qv-r61 and you are ready to take a photo in less than 1second. This is very handy for those "capturing the moment" situations. Shutter lag is also very short indeed, and these two elements make operating the camera a very easy and pleasurable experience.
The Bestshot mode provides 23 different camera set-ups, each tailored to suit specific scenarios. For example, the "Night Scene" set-up is for shooting night-time pictures (a city scene, say), and the camera settings have been tweaked to suit such a situation. i.e. shutter time is longer (up to 4 seconds), ISO is higher etc. Another Bestshot mode, "Flower", is pre-set to macro focus with no flash and high levels of saturation. Whilst on the subject of Macro focus – the qv-r61 can only go down to 10cm, which may be a little restrictive.
Most of these modes are surprisingly good, and certainly give the user a good point of reference for the types of settings needed in such situations. Once a Bestshot has been chosen, the user can then tweak some of the settings manually (as is the case in Snapshot mode), so there is a certain amount of adjustment available, although it's certainly not in the realms of real manual control such as with more expensive cameras.
Aside from the obvious settings like Focus Type (Auto, Manual, Macro, Infinity), and Flash (On, Off, Auto, Red-Eye) there are some more "technical" user-tweakable settings available. These include the likes of Exposure Compensation, ISO, White Balance, and Focus Type (Spot, Centre-Weighted, Multi), which can be used to manipulate the image to some extent. There are also options to use filters (Black and White, Sepia and several other colour filters), and you can also change the levels of saturation, contrast and sharpness before shooting.
While there isn't much in the way of real manual adjustment there are some options available, which can allow a little more creativity/control over your photography. There may not be an aperture control, but you can use the ISO and/or the Exposure Compensation adjustments as a crude substitute where you need to control the light coming in. You can also use the focus lock function when in Night Scene mode to set a longer shutter time, then recompose the picture to get a bit more artistic if you want. While none of this will be enough to keep the serious photographer happy, it's adequate for the interested beginner.
The qv-r61 has a 3x optical zoom and a 4x digital zoom. This is pretty much standard for cameras of this type and there are no surprises in this department. The digital zoom does the usual "trick" of magnifying a central section of the image. The result is certainly less grainy than I've seen on other cameras, which is probably due to the 6 megapixles available. That said, I don't really think that the digital zoom is likely to be used for taking any serious quality photos.
Other features include: 3-type self-timer, continuous shutter mode, slideshow, trimming/copying/resizing, alarm, world time and calendar. There is also a histogram available to display technical information about the image (either in Record or Play mode).
Picture Quality
The qv-r61 is capable of producing very good quality pictures. Realistically, 6 megapixels is more than adequate for the amateur snapper. There are various settings available for image size, ranging from 640x480 pixels for emailing and websites, to 2816x2112 which Casio claim can produce A3 sized prints. Movies are recorded at a set resolution of 320x240. There are 3 different settings available for picture quality (i.e. the amount of compression used for the jpeg), which are Fine, Normal, or Economy. It's perhaps a little disappointing that there is no option for an uncompressed format, but the "Fine" setting does produce very high quality images with an average file size of just under 1mb at 1600x1200 resolution.
The movie mode produces adequate footage for fun clips, but is seriously marred by the lack of sound recording. It's not a facility that I would personally bother with, but I'm sure some people would find a use for it.
Software
The qv-r61 comes with a CD-ROM containing the full user manual in .pdf format (a "quick reference" booklet is also supplied as a hard copy), and some software for loading and editing images on your PC. The full manual is quite well written and does a good job of explaining the camera's operation in an easy to understand way.
The bundled software is VERY basic, to say the least. I've not used the loading software as I prefer to just copy and paste the images into the relevant folder on my PC. The editing software has very limited functionality and is really quite disappointing – it doesn't even have a red-eye removal facility (essential since the red-eye flash mode on the camera doesn't always do the job). I would not advise anyone to rely on this software for anything more than the most basic manipulation, such as cropping images.
Memory and Power
The qv-r61 comes with 2 x AA Ni-MH rechargeable batteries and a charger, and the power consumption is very good. While Casio's claims may be a little optimistic (or maybe specified under ideal operating conditions), you can certainly expect shoot at least 150-200 photos per charge (this will include some with flash and a certain amount of viewing stored images in the playback mode – more representative of how the camera will actually be used. The batteries take 4 hours to charge.
An obvious advantage of the camera being designed to use AA rechargeable batteries is that you can use the normal non-rechargeable variety in emergencies (although the qv-r61 will drain these at an alarming rate).
The qv-r61 has a paltry 9.7mb of built-in memory and does not come with a memory card – these need to be purchased separately (either the SD or MMC variety). I'm not really sure what the point of the built-in memory is, but I suppose you could fit a reasonable number of Economy 640x480 images on it. I would recommend the additional purchase of at least a 256mb SD card.
Overall
I purchased this camera from Dixons as it was on offer at #199 – supposedly half price. For this price I feel that it was money well spent, but I wouldn't like have paid anymore for it. (Certainly not the #400 that Dixons claim it should have cost!)
All in all this is a very capable camera, which can produce images of very high quality if used correctly. Compared with other cameras in it's class it may initially seem to be a bit light on features, but you soon realise that you probably would never have used them anyway. What the qv-r61 does, it does well with minimum fuss and maximum ease of use.
Buy: If you want an easy to use point and shoot with high image quality
The qv-r61 is small and compact in an attractive silver/aluminium style finish. It feels solid and comfortable to handle and doesn't suffer from those awkward-looking "bulges" you sometimes get with similarly priced cameras. It has a simple control layout and a decent sized 2" TFT colour LCD screen.
Features and Functions
There are 2 simple modes of operation - either Play or Record – which are accessed via 2 well placed buttons. Play mode is where you need to be in order to view your photos/movies and couldn't be simpler to use. Just use the zoom control in conjunction with the 4-way cursor pad to display your shots on the nicely sized screen. If you zoom out far enough, the display will show thumbnails in a 3 x 3 layout. Scrolling through these can be a tad confusing – you can keep stepping forward with the cursor pad and the qv-r61 will cycle continuously through your stored photos. As there is no indexing on the thumbnails themselves, it can be quite difficult to locate a particular picture and you really need to study the thumbnails to find which one you're after. It's not a major problem, but can be mildly irritating and is definitely not the most user-friendly design.
Record mode is for taking photos/movies and this has 3 separate states of operation: Snapshot, Bestshot and Movie. Snapshot is the default setting for quick and easy photography, while movie is obviously for recording avi files (no sound, unfortunately). Start-up time for this camera is impressively fast. When powered off, hitting the Record mode button initiates the qv-r61 and you are ready to take a photo in less than 1second. This is very handy for those "capturing the moment" situations. Shutter lag is also very short indeed, and these two elements make operating the camera a very easy and pleasurable experience.
The Bestshot mode provides 23 different camera set-ups, each tailored to suit specific scenarios. For example, the "Night Scene" set-up is for shooting night-time pictures (a city scene, say), and the camera settings have been tweaked to suit such a situation. i.e. shutter time is longer (up to 4 seconds), ISO is higher etc. Another Bestshot mode, "Flower", is pre-set to macro focus with no flash and high levels of saturation. Whilst on the subject of Macro focus – the qv-r61 can only go down to 10cm, which may be a little restrictive.
Most of these modes are surprisingly good, and certainly give the user a good point of reference for the types of settings needed in such situations. Once a Bestshot has been chosen, the user can then tweak some of the settings manually (as is the case in Snapshot mode), so there is a certain amount of adjustment available, although it's certainly not in the realms of real manual control such as with more expensive cameras.
Aside from the obvious settings like Focus Type (Auto, Manual, Macro, Infinity), and Flash (On, Off, Auto, Red-Eye) there are some more "technical" user-tweakable settings available. These include the likes of Exposure Compensation, ISO, White Balance, and Focus Type (Spot, Centre-Weighted, Multi), which can be used to manipulate the image to some extent. There are also options to use filters (Black and White, Sepia and several other colour filters), and you can also change the levels of saturation, contrast and sharpness before shooting.
While there isn't much in the way of real manual adjustment there are some options available, which can allow a little more creativity/control over your photography. There may not be an aperture control, but you can use the ISO and/or the Exposure Compensation adjustments as a crude substitute where you need to control the light coming in. You can also use the focus lock function when in Night Scene mode to set a longer shutter time, then recompose the picture to get a bit more artistic if you want. While none of this will be enough to keep the serious photographer happy, it's adequate for the interested beginner.
The qv-r61 has a 3x optical zoom and a 4x digital zoom. This is pretty much standard for cameras of this type and there are no surprises in this department. The digital zoom does the usual "trick" of magnifying a central section of the image. The result is certainly less grainy than I've seen on other cameras, which is probably due to the 6 megapixles available. That said, I don't really think that the digital zoom is likely to be used for taking any serious quality photos.
Other features include: 3-type self-timer, continuous shutter mode, slideshow, trimming/copying/resizing, alarm, world time and calendar. There is also a histogram available to display technical information about the image (either in Record or Play mode).
Picture Quality
The qv-r61 is capable of producing very good quality pictures. Realistically, 6 megapixels is more than adequate for the amateur snapper. There are various settings available for image size, ranging from 640x480 pixels for emailing and websites, to 2816x2112 which Casio claim can produce A3 sized prints. Movies are recorded at a set resolution of 320x240. There are 3 different settings available for picture quality (i.e. the amount of compression used for the jpeg), which are Fine, Normal, or Economy. It's perhaps a little disappointing that there is no option for an uncompressed format, but the "Fine" setting does produce very high quality images with an average file size of just under 1mb at 1600x1200 resolution.
The movie mode produces adequate footage for fun clips, but is seriously marred by the lack of sound recording. It's not a facility that I would personally bother with, but I'm sure some people would find a use for it.
Software
The qv-r61 comes with a CD-ROM containing the full user manual in .pdf format (a "quick reference" booklet is also supplied as a hard copy), and some software for loading and editing images on your PC. The full manual is quite well written and does a good job of explaining the camera's operation in an easy to understand way.
The bundled software is VERY basic, to say the least. I've not used the loading software as I prefer to just copy and paste the images into the relevant folder on my PC. The editing software has very limited functionality and is really quite disappointing – it doesn't even have a red-eye removal facility (essential since the red-eye flash mode on the camera doesn't always do the job). I would not advise anyone to rely on this software for anything more than the most basic manipulation, such as cropping images.
Memory and Power
The qv-r61 comes with 2 x AA Ni-MH rechargeable batteries and a charger, and the power consumption is very good. While Casio's claims may be a little optimistic (or maybe specified under ideal operating conditions), you can certainly expect shoot at least 150-200 photos per charge (this will include some with flash and a certain amount of viewing stored images in the playback mode – more representative of how the camera will actually be used. The batteries take 4 hours to charge.
An obvious advantage of the camera being designed to use AA rechargeable batteries is that you can use the normal non-rechargeable variety in emergencies (although the qv-r61 will drain these at an alarming rate).
The qv-r61 has a paltry 9.7mb of built-in memory and does not come with a memory card – these need to be purchased separately (either the SD or MMC variety). I'm not really sure what the point of the built-in memory is, but I suppose you could fit a reasonable number of Economy 640x480 images on it. I would recommend the additional purchase of at least a 256mb SD card.
Overall
I purchased this camera from Dixons as it was on offer at #199 – supposedly half price. For this price I feel that it was money well spent, but I wouldn't like have paid anymore for it. (Certainly not the #400 that Dixons claim it should have cost!)
All in all this is a very capable camera, which can produce images of very high quality if used correctly. Compared with other cameras in it's class it may initially seem to be a bit light on features, but you soon realise that you probably would never have used them anyway. What the qv-r61 does, it does well with minimum fuss and maximum ease of use.
Buy: If you want an easy to use point and shoot with high image quality
